The most commonly used type of beehive is a single walled, top access, movable frame hive, such as the Dadant or Langstroph top access hive, and the invention is especially adapted to a hive of this type. The Dadant hive has: a brood chamber constituted by a brood box at the bottom, a queen excluder supported on top on the brood chamber to prevent passage of the queen while permitting passage of workers, and a honey chamber formed by one or more honey boxes or supers containing hanging frames. Access to the supers for withdrawal of honey frames is from the top, while access for bees is at the bottom of the brood chamber. Occasional access to the top for honey frame removal presents no great problem; a removable lid or cover enables the hanging frames readily to be removed. However, relatively frequent access to the brood chamber is necessary to inspect for signs of swarming (which must be prevented) and this is relatively laborious, requiring disassembly of the supers and queen excluder from above the brood box on which they are supported. In the case of a beekeeper having a large number of hives, inspection of the brood chambers can clearly be an arduous and time consuming task.
In addition, it is a common practice to move hives from one part of the country to another according to the seasons. This also can be an arduous task when a large number of hives are involved. All the hives must be closed at the bottom access to prevent escape of bees, and then the closed hives must be individually tied up, manhandled and stacked on to a lorry or trailer for transportation.